Lecture in the Arts, Histories, Literatures, and Religions of Burma: Mahosadha’s Cunning and the Cretan Labyrinth

When and Where

Friday, November 23, 2018 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
208N
North House
1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3K7

Description

One of the Buddha Gotama’s numerous epithets was opamma kusalo muni – sage skilled in parables, exemplified in his life as Mahosadha.  The remains of an early second millennium Burmese kingdom, named after its ceremonial center, Pagan, preserve several visual narratives of the story. They incorporate a labyrinth image to represent the setting where medicine curing human ailments was dispensed, and riddles and judicial problems were resolved – antecedent of the Bodhimanda – site of Gotama’s Awakening.  Sometime in the late 11th century an unknown artisan, guided by a learned though anonymous Buddhist monk, selected the labyrinth image to reference his society’s conception of the human predicament. That monk’s vastly better known Christian counterparts, a millennium earlier and in another part of the world, chose likewise. The lecture speculates on the reasons and significance of the monk’s choice in the Pagan context.

PDF iconMahosadha’s Cunning and the Cretan Labyrinth.pdf

Map

1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3K7

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